San Antonio stabbing victim wanted to be human rights lawyer

Mohammed Abdelaziz, 25, was allegedly stabbed and killed by his aunt at her home on Tuesday morning.

Mohammed Abdelaziz, 25, was allegedly stabbed and killed by his aunt at her home on Tuesday morning.

Photo: Courtesy, Sarah Alfadda

Image 2 of 2

Andira A. Abdelaziz, A 35-year-old woman was charged with murder Tuesday morning after she allegedly stabbed her nephew, 25, to death at a home on the far West Side Tuesday morning.

Andira A. Abdelaziz, A 35-year-old woman was charged with murder Tuesday morning after she allegedly stabbed her nephew, 25, to death at a home on the far West Side Tuesday morning.

Photo: Courtesy, Bexar County Sheriff

San Antonio stabbing victim wanted to be human rights lawyer

1 / 2

Back to Gallery

Born in San Antonio, Mohammed Abdelaziz was a Palestinian American who lived in two worlds: his family’s hometown on the West Bank and the Alamo City’s West Side.

He attended the American School of Palestine in Ramallah as a child, then returned to San Antonio when he was 16. He helped his family at their restaurants and meat markets on the West Side while earning a political science degree at the University of Texas at San Antonio. When he received his law degree from Washburn University in Kansas last year, he became the first in his family to have a graduate degree.

Express Newsletters

Get the latest news, sports and food features sent directly to your inbox.

He wanted to be an international human rights lawyer, to get married and have children. By all accounts of his relatives and friends, Mohammed, 25, had a bright future ahead of him.

But it came to a tragic end Tuesday when he was stabbed to death, allegedly by his aunt at her home in an upscale neighborhood on the far West Side. Details of what happened still are not known; authorities say his aunt reported a burglary in the morning but when deputies arrived, she told them the matter had been resolved. The officers had not been gone long when they were called back to find Mohammed stabbed in the driveway, his car crashed into the house.

Andira Abdelaziz was charged with murder and released on $100,000 bond late Wednesday.

Thursday, Mohammed’s grieving family was making plans for returning his body to the family hometown north of Ramallah.

“He made a personal choice … to come back to San Antonio because he wanted to take the Texas Bar, be around (his family) and help them out because they were struggling financially,” said his cousin Sarah Alfadda, 25. “He was just very compassionate — he could have gone anywhere in the country, he could have taken the Kansas Bar, he could have done multiple different things, but he made the choice to come back here to support them and help them financially.”

Sitting in the home of Mohammed’s uncle Khair Abdelaziz on the North Side, Alfadda and one of Mohammed’s sisters-in-law Nadia Abdelaziz, who is married to Mohammed’s oldest brother, Abdallah, talked about Mohammed’s life, a life that had him traveling extensively between his family’s home town of Mazraa al-Shariqiya north of Ramallah in the West Bank and his large family of uncles, aunts and cousins in San Antonio.

“He actually wanted to go home this summer and get married. He was looking forward to that,” Abdelaziz said. “He just wanted to be happy. He wanted to have kids one day. He wanted to be a dad; he was a good uncle.”

Mohammed was one of five children, ages 4 to 28. His father, Aziz, had been living in San Antonio while his mother, Feda, remained in Mazraa al-Shariqiya with some of his siblings. Now she awaits her son as his father, his brother and his uncle bring him home today. He will be buried in the family plot.

Aziz Abdelaziz, 50, and some of his brothers own multiple business in San Antonio, including at least two Texas Meat Markets and El Mucho Taco Plus restaurant on the West Side

Alfadda said that Mohammed had been helping his father at the stores and earning money to pay off some of the student debt he had incurred during law school. He was “very kind,” she said, and a great loss to the family.

Nadia, 23, described her brother-in-law as “very sweet, always happy.” Dressed in a black burqa, covered from head to toe with her face exposed, she got excited when asked if Mohammed could be called “the life of the party.”

“That was him, that was him,” she said, smiling.

Others outside his family also had good things to say about Mohammed.

Washburn law professor Alex Glashausser said he learned much from the young man and his unique experiences.

“He taught me what it feels like to not have a home and to not be fully embraced in the place you grew up, which for him was Jerusalem or in and around Jerusalem,” Glashausser said in a phone interview, adding that he was holding a memento his student had given him: a small Palestinian flag with a drawing of a handala, a refugee child cartoon character.

He recalled Mohammed often asked for advice on how to make it through law school and remembered the respect he had for Glashausser as a man of letters.

The professor recounted a time when he had been chosen to be hit by a pie for a fundraising event. Mohammed became upset, Glashausser said, because he couldn’t stand the thought of the professor being treated with such disrespect.

When it came time for the pie to fly, Glashausser discovered that Mohammed had donated the highest sum, giving him the right to throw the pie. But the student showed up wearing old clothes — he was planning to take the pie for his professor.

“He told me, ‘Professor, I made sure to be the one to throw the pie because I cannot bear to have the pie thrown at you. So I won so I’m going to step in and I want you to throw the pie at me,’” Glashausser said.

In the end, Glashausser persuaded Mohammed that it was all right for the professor to get hit with a pie but the student couldn’t stand to watch and left.

“It really touched me that he felt so strongly about this,” Glashausser said.